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Health Reporter
The inactivated Covid-19 Sinopharm vaccine coming into the country is the best vaccine for Zimbabwe as it will be able to react to the strains circulating in the country, a Government official has said.

The country yesterday took delivery of the second batch of 400 000 Sinopharm vaccines, 200 000 of which were gifted by China.

This will help Government to ramp up the vaccination drive which was launched last month.

Although more than 36 000 frontline workers have been inoculated so far, uptake has been slow.

Co-chairperson of Virological Monitoring in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Justin Manasa said the Covid-19 virus continues to change and adapt within the population it infects adding that for Zimbabwe, the Sinopharm shot was the best.

“It is important as we are monitoring the pandemic to do what is called genomic surveillance. This is looking at (how) the virus changes over time and that will guide us on the vaccines or the diagnostics that we are using.

“The uniqueness of the Sinopharm vaccine is that it is a vaccine made up of the inactivated form of the SarsCov-2, so it stimulates different aspects of the immune response targeting different proteins in the virus,” he said.

He said should the country need a different vaccine, Government would need to have adequate information on the Covid-19 strains circulating to enable the manufacturer to produce a vaccine that would target that specific strain.

Dr Manasa said Government had already embarked on a monitoring programme to track changes in the virus as it spreads across the country.

“We will be monitoring the virus as we are implementing the vaccine within our population and try to identify if there are any virus changes that will enable the virus to infect people despite them having been vaccinated,” he said.

Phase three trials done in December last year showed that the Sinopharm vaccine was 86 percent effective and so far, more than 80 countries and international organisations have expressed their interest in it.

According to experts, inactivated viruses have been used for over 100 years. They were used to create the Polio vaccine in the 1950s and have been used to prepare vaccines against other diseases including rabies and hepatitis A.

For most African countries that have limited access to deep-freezing facilities, Sinopharm works better as it can be transported more easily at normal fridge temperatures.